I often refer to the situation that the UK, Germany, California and others pose for themselves “hit the green energy wall”. But now that the UK has really gotten there and begun to deal with the aftermath, I’m not sure that “hit the wall” is the best metaphor. A better analogy might be “drive into a green energy drain”. After all, when you hit a wall, you can just pick yourself up and turn around and get on your way. In the hole, you are trapped with no way to get out. You can stay there for a long time.
This is where the UK finds itself today. For more than a decade, they have actively and purposely pursued the green energy fantasy. The Net Zero emission target is made mandatory by law in 2019. They built hundreds of wind turbines and solar panels, and at the same time shut down nearly all their coal mines and coal power plants. That leaves them largely dependent on natural gas as backup for intermittent renewable energy sources. They had a lot of natural gas right under their feet in a large shale system, but for many years they were interested in allowing fracturing to produce gas, and then in 2019 they imposed a complete ban on jailbreaking. With production from their North Sea gas fields dwindling, they had to buy gas on the European market. And although they don’t buy much gas directly from Russia, the European market has been boosted to great heights by the cut in Russian supply. The result: the average annual residential energy bill in the UK, which was recently around £1000 earlier this year, has increased to around £3000 this month, and expected to soar as high as £5000 next April without government intervention.
And only now it becomes clear that there is no good exit strategy. That would be true even if everyone in the UK was free of the green energy illusion, but of course that would not be the case either. For years they banned what they needed to do to maintain a low-cost energy system, and now they are facing years if not a decade or more to get back to the way they were. .
Consider some possibilities:
- Perhaps the most obvious first step to regaining energy sober is the lifting of the domestic mining ban. Prime Minister for a month Liz Truss did just that during her brief tenure in office. Then new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took office on October 25, and on October 26 – the very next day – he announced he would reinstate the ban on jailbreaking. Are from Reuters, October 26:Fracking will be banned in the UK under Chancellor Rishi Sunak, reversing a decision by his predecessor Liz Truss, as Britain’s new leader backtracks on his Conservative Party manifesto pledge in 2019…. . In parliament, Sunak was asked about fracking and said he stands on a 2019 manifesto pledge on the issue. In the best cases, it will be several years after fusing is allowed before full-scale production can come into play to alleviate the energy crisis. But with a regulatory environment that reverses 180 degrees every few weeks, who exactly is going to shell out millions of pounds to start major jailbreak projects? Even if they reverse course again and open up mining tomorrow, it will at least be many years before large-scale production comes online.
- How about importing more natural gas from the United States, where much lower prices due to the cracking revolution have allowed for a significant increase in production over the past decade? Easier said than done. There are many bottlenecks in the system, each of which can take years to resolve. The biggest immediate bottleneck is that all US facilities that cool and compress natural gas into LNG for export are already operating at full capacity. (Are from Reuters, March 25, 2022: “However, all seven US LNG export plants are currently operating at capacity and liquefying about 12.7 bcfd of gas. So no matter how high global prices go, the US can no longer produce LNG – at the moment.”). Other bottlenecks include a lack of LNG carriers to transport the fuel, insufficient pipeline capacity from the Permian basin gas fields to Gulf Coast export facilities, and insufficient capacity to import LNG from the European side. Europe. The existence of all these bottlenecks that prevent US exports to Europe is the reason why natural gas prices are so much higher in Europe than in the US. We’re talking years to ease all these knots.
- What about the coal option? Most recently in 2012, UK reaches almost 20% energy (not just electricity) from coal; but by 2020, as part of a mandatory green energy transition, coal produces only about 2% of the UK’s electricity (and almost no energy for other purposes). The recent plan is to close the last coal plants by 2024, although in the current crisis it is still said that the final plants will be open for a while longer. (Are from Reuters, May 30, 2022: “Some UK coal-fired power plants scheduled to close this year may need to stay open to ensure power supply this winter, the government said on Monday.” ). But there is no real possibility of going back and reopening many of the factories that closed in the previous decade. In many cases, they were blown up. Here’s a picture of the Longannet factory in Fife, Scotland, which was blown to sheets of glass just last year in 2021:
This is the comment of Scottish Power CEO, Keith Anderson, quoted in Express: “In 2016, we made the decision to close Longannet after more than 40 years of establishment. This move marks our and our parent company Iberdrola’s commitment to destroying the economy. This commitment has been reinforced many times over the past five years – two years after Longannet closed we closed our remaining coal plants and sold our gas business, making us the first integrated energy company in the UK to generate 100% green electricity.” Keith so virtuous! The Express (February 2021) adds: “Longannet, which closed in 2016, is Scotland’s largest coal-fired power station and has been generating electricity since 1970. The plant is capable of producing enough electricity to power two million homes a year.”
- Nuclear? With opposition from regulators and activists, we’ll probably all be dead long before it can make a significant contribution.. The UK is believed to have two nuclear plants under construction. Construction, Hinckley Point C and Sizewell C. The Hinckley Point plant began construction in 2016, and is now expected to be completed in 2027, following lengthy delays and massive cost overruns. Sizewell was just given the green light by the UK government in July 2022so don’t expect that one to produce electricity before some time in the mid-2030s. According to the AP at that link, activists continue to seek to block Sizewell through lawsuits.
- But more wind and solar? Don’t be ridiculous. As discussed many times here, no matter how you build your solar and wind facilities, you will still have a long blackout without adequate backups from some source is subject to change. In the UK, all sources are convertible at least for years, if not completely blocked.
Here’s one more idea: distribute hundreds of billions of pounds in subsidies to utilities to reduce costs for households to less than the projected £5,000 annualized. This will ensure that the private sector has no incentive to work to alleviate the crisis, and that the crisis remains essentially forever, as public debt explodes. Of course, this is the “solution” they are actually offering.
So they are in a cul-de-sac. And on top of everything else, they couldn’t even muster a solid political majority to try to get out. A substantial block they call the “Green Tories” continues to advocate for the doubling of green fantasies. Are from Evening Standard, October 29:
Green Tory MP Nadine Dorries condemned Rishi Sunak for not attending the COP27 summit. . . . Ms Dorries said on Twitter that Mr Sunak’s failure to attend was wrong because global warming is one of the “biggest crises facing our planet”. . . . “Global warming is the biggest crisis facing our planet and net zero creates as many as 1,000 jobs, which is good for the economy. The COP in Glasgow was the most successful ever…but don’t expect media coverage like that.”
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